


The (Not Nearly as Concise as I Would Have Liked It) History of Franco-British Relations, from Bronze Age Trade to the Norman Invasion, as told by England, a FrUK fic

by crashedtimemachine (snowonpalecheeks)



Series: Historical Hetalia (FrUK) [1]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Ancients, Bronze Age, Developing Friendships, Developing Relationship, First Meetings, FrUK, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Gen, M/M, The Norman Invasion, future relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-11
Updated: 2013-11-11
Packaged: 2018-01-01 03:56:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1040057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowonpalecheeks/pseuds/crashedtimemachine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While most people assume that France and England must have met in the Middle Ages, history tells a different story, and England has decided to set the record straight about the beginnings of his <i>friendship</i> with France, including their relatively short time with the Roman Empire.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The (Not Nearly as Concise as I Would Have Liked It) History of Franco-British Relations, from Bronze Age Trade to the Norman Invasion, as told by England, a FrUK fic

**Author's Note:**

> **A note about names:**  
>  I tried to pick the most appropriate names for the characters, but I’m sure I’ve screwed them up, so please be patient with me? These are either the oldest names recorded, period-appropriate names, or names in their native languages, depending on what was available.
> 
>   * **Scotland:** Alba
>   * **France:** Gaul (inherited from the ancient for a short time)
>   * **Spain:** Hispania
>   * **Wales:** Cymru
>   * **Ireland** : Ierne
> 

> 
> **A note about time periods:**  
>  **Bronze Age:** Between 1200 and 900 BC, the British Isles traded with the continent, particularly France; in Hetalia terms, this means France and England met way back then, before they were fully formed nations.
> 
>  **Roman Britain:** The Roman Empire began its expansion into Britannia around 43 AD, about 100 years after the defeat of the Gauls (modern France) and Hispania (modern Spain). From 260 - 273 AD, Britannia, Gaul, and Hispania broke away from Rome together.
> 
>  **Norman Invasion:** In 1066, the French duke William the Conqueror of Normandy became William I, King of England by invading England, killing the current King Harold (an Anglo-Saxon), and claiming the throne for himself. 

Most think we met back then—when France was expanding and tunics were all the rage, back when Rome was already in the rubbish bin, replaced by a new Holy Roman Empire and the beginnings of European unifications were stirring. 

Of course, most would be wrong.

* * *

**1200 - 900 BC**

I first saw him during the time of spears, when my brothers attempted to initiate trade with the continent. He was small, but then so was I, and we each clung to our guardians in trepidation. 

My brothers weren't quite so scared, and Alba stepped right out in front of us all and tried speaking to him. I followed, still clutching onto his cloak. Alba ignored the lady Gaul completely—Scotland has never quite master the art of manners, even now—and issued a greeting to the little nation hiding behind her skirts. She didn't seem all that offended (more likely amused), and in fact, she pushed the little pudgy thing toward our group and urged him to respond in kind. 

I was immediately taken by the way he pronounced the initial words that left his small, pink lips, and I was quite suspicious that we were being made fun of because it sounded like he was _singing_ at us. Singing! Did he take us for fools, I thought, and I stepped forward around the side of Alba’s cloak to glare at him, forgetting my fear for the sake of my anger. 

He glared right back, until Alba grew annoyed at being ignored and stepped between us. He greeted him again, somewhat more forcefully, but the little boy from the continent laughed and grinned and clasped my brother’s hand in his own. 

I glared at them both and stalked back over to my brothers. Cymru just looked at me as if I were a bit dumb and Ierne smirked, but he clearly wasn't happy with my little performance. It’s funny, I remember very little else from our first meeting, and little else from the era. I didn't have a name yet (I was new and young, and I know now that I had only just begun to be recognized separately from my brothers) and I didn't have any standing to speak to those continentals, so I retreated behind my brothers and pouted and waited. One day, I would show that little brat some manners—singing, really?—and Alba, too. 

I’d show them all.

* * *

**43 - 273 AD**

We met again during the time of Roman expansion. 

One moment I was playing outside with my friends of the forest, the next I was being shoved into a cage! It stank and I was hungry and—I suppose I can admit it here—I cried a bit. I was small and defenseless, and my brothers did nothing but taunt the Roman Empire and insist that if he took me and left they would cause him no more trouble. (Little did I know that they wouldn't keep their promises and would continue to fight the Romans for centuries to come.)

The ride in the cage only ended when I had been taken across the water—I feared I would drown in that stinking cage—and deeper inland than we had ever dared to trek. 

I stepped out of the cage, rather than allowing them to drag me like an animal, and surveyed the place that would be my new residence. My heart and bones ached for my lands. The earth beneath my feet was foreign through and through, and it hurt because despite the distance I could feel my own island calling to me. This would never be my home.

I spent the first weeks sullen and despondent, tired beyond explanation and unable to stomach most of the rich, exotic foods. 

I didn't notice when the other inhabitants of the stone villa returned. It wasn't until I heard that melodious singing voice that I truly registered their presence. “ **YOU!** ” I cried and launched myself at the blond boy who was slightly taller and leaner than the last time I’d set eyes on him. He was an easy target, and for the first time since my arrival, I truly felt the spark of life seeping back into me. Somehow, this was his fault, and I was going to make him pay. 

“What did you do?! I hate you! **I HATE YOU** ” I yelled and despite my efforts to land a good punch on his cheek, I was just too small to make any real impact. Disheartened, I allowed the other boy whom I’d barely noticed pull me away from my target. 

“Gaul, what did you do to this little guy?” the boy restraining me asked, and I wasn't sure who he was talking to. The _Gaul_ that I remembered, if faintly, was tall and elvish, with shimmering hair wrapped high on her head and—

“I ‘ave no idea.” The boy who had apparently inherited the name of Gaul was grinning from the floor, but the brightness did'’t quite reach his eyes. 

I noticed then the nearly-healed black eye he bore and the wrappings on his wrists. A suspicious lumpiness of the abdomen betrayed the extent of his injuries and I...I felt like an ass. He must not have been here much longer than myself. The other boy seemed to have fared a bit better, or perhaps he was the first to arrive and his wounds were finished healing. Either way, I assessed rather quickly that the three of us were prisoners, not enemies, and I immediately began to wonder at how I could use this to my advantage. I didn't plan to stay here for long, after all. I had a home to return to, and I might have hated my brothers, but I was beginning to hate being away from them even more. 

Days in the Gaulish Roman villa passed in relative peace. The Roman Empire, himself, rarely made an appearance, and I heard rumors that he had his own house farther south where he threw extravagant parties and kept slaves of all the tribes he had conquered. I wondered sometimes if some of my own were living in the far-off villa, but most of the time I was more focused on immediate survival than distant lands. 

For instance, there was the morning where Gaul tried to steal the meager amount of butter I had managed to make (for some reason, the Romans laughed at my request to have some brought into the house). It resulted in war, naturally, with the end result that we were both covered in mud and who knew what else, and Hispania was forced to separate us for the rest of the afternoon. 

Sometimes we would gang up on Hispania, who was supposed to be watching us and keeping the peace in the Roman Empire’s stead, and we would tie knots in his leathers or hide his sword or replace his wine with grape juice. We all laughed in the end, and the three of us became...if not friends, then certainly not enemies. 

However, each time the Roman Empire returned, the older boys would become terse and arrogant. Both used me as a target when Rome was around, trying to prove something—their strength and cunning, my weakness, their worthiness to carry his legacy...I never truly understood, and of course, I never participated in these kind of demeaning activities. I fought him tooth and nail, as any good Briton would, with vile curses and the occasional stomping on his toes. 

Did they not understand that this man had invaded my home and theirs, had taken us away from our brothers, and forced us to come here against our wills? I wouldn't forget, and I don’t believe I've ever quite forgiven them for turning on me at the first hint of his presence in that house. 

As soon as he was gone, they would smile and laugh together and they would hug me and insist that they only did it to protect us all, and wouldn't it be nice if we all went berry picking now? Of course, I’d go, and I’d try to enjoy it. We had so many good times that I can almost forget the bad. 

Eventually, food became more and more scarce and the guards around the house became lax and seemed to forget we existed all together. For several years in a row, the Roman Empire simply didn't appear, and Gaul and Hispania seemed genuinely sad at this. I suppose that, looking back on it now, they had accepted that Rome would be their new family and they were disappointed when he, like their previous guardians, abandoned them to their own devices. 

I shamelessly used this disappointment to my advantage and finally convinced them that the three of us—together—should escape. I knew it would deal a hefty blow to that bastard and his empire, and that’s really all that I cared about. 

So we packed sacks of the last of the food and the few pieces of gold and silver and jewels that we thought we could trade with other nations, and we ran. We didn't look back. We didn't speak until we were far away from the villa and its inhabitants. When we didn't hear dogs giving chase or the yelling of the guards, we slowed our pace a bit. 

We first went to Hispania's home to the west, where we bid him farewell and he parted from us to rejoin his brothers on the peninsula. Left alone with Gaul, we continued east and north, to the slimmest section of the waters between our lands. Along the way, we talked, we laughed, I learned a bit of his singing dialect, and he learned a bit more of mine, and between the two of us, I believe, were the beginnings of friendship. 

Unfortunately, friendship amongst children is hardly built to last, and between the third century and the eleventh, many things changed between us. 

But at the time, we parted at the seaside near the white cliffs of my shores with a hug and a grin and the silent thanks that pass between the best of friends. 

I would like to be able to tell you that the Roman Empire ‘s rule over my lands ended then. But what I found when I returned were new walls and settlements marking my hills like a pox and Roman soldiers living amongst my people as natives. Cymru had apparently been carted off, as well, to another house farther south and had also managed to return to the island relatively unscathed (he had been working as a slave, I later found), and Alba, who was never completely conquered, bore a new knotty scar hugging the curve of his back. He spent weeks without a shirt on just to show it off to us all and would boast about his battles with the Roman Empire, himself, to anyone who would listen. 

Of course, I listened. 

I hated that man more than any other, more than Alba and my brothers, and any news of Rome getting beaten as he surely deserved made me giddy with satisfaction. 

Naturally, I was different, too. I spoke a good deal of Latin, though with the mixture of Gaul’s dialect and my own, it was hardly recognizable. My tastes had changed, and I tried to cook more like the chefs in the villa (and failed miserably, I might add… _ahem_ ). I had histories to record, and it seems I had already fallen in love with writing, even then. I wrote letters to Gaul, sometimes, and to Hispania telling them about my brothers and my forests and my fay friends. 

It was a mistake, as I would learn soon enough.

* * *

**1066 AD**

We kept in contact through the years, though not so much in person. Immigrants arrived from his lands, and others left mine to explore his. We weren't that different (no matter how grudgingly we’d admit it), so our people felt at home in either of our territories, and for hundreds of years, we managed not to attack one another, more or less—though, in truth, we were too busy defending ourselves from others.

Eventually, however, we did meet, and...well...it was as if Gaul had been transformed. He was taller than I, and his hair had grown long past his shoulders. He was lithe and slim, and wearing a perfectly tailored tunic (though of no style I had ever seen before). His Latin was better than mine—at least that much hadn't changed—and he giggled and bounced around like a courtesan rather than a nation.

In fact, at first look, I thought he was a _girl_ and that I had mistakenly called out to the wrong person. I was terribly embarrassed until he turned and smiled and it was the same nauseating combination of teasing familiarity and fake mirth—one never knew whether he was genuinely happy or merely using his charms to bring down your defenses. It put me on my guard immediately, and before long swords were drawn and the fight began.

By the end of the year, my king (well, the most recent, anyhow; I wasn't particularly attached to him) was dead, and one of Gaul’s—no, one of _France’s_ dukes was ruling my lands as king. His claim to the throne had been dubious at best, but I really did'’t have much to say in the matter. Between the Anglo-Saxon Germans and Dutch, the Norse, and the Danes, this was a continuing trend, and I was hardly in any position to protest. 

And thus began our centuries of...whatever this is. 

I hate him, but he’s a constant I’ll never completely be rid of (and truth be told, I wouldn't want to...but don’t tell him that). 

..

**Author's Note:**

> **To learn more:**   
> 
> 
>   * [Bronze Age Britain](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronze_Age_Britain)
>   * [Roman Britain](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Britain)
>   * [Atlantic Bronze Age (pre-Roman trading network)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Bronze_Age)
>   * [Conquest of Gaul by Rome](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaul#Conquest_by_Rome)
>   * [Roman Gaul](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaul#Roman_Gallia)
>   * [The Norman Conquest of England](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_conquest)
>   * [Scotland/Caledonia/Alba](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caledonia)
>   * [Ireland/Irerne](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ireland#Emergence_of_Celtic_Ireland)
>   * [Wales/Cymru](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wales#Roman_era)
>   * [Spain/Hispania](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hispania#Roman_Hispania)
> 



End file.
